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Recent PoliticsPosts

In the Rust Belt, a Ripple of Optimism

Posted on 05/16/2012 by | Politics | Comments

PoliticsSusan Milligan is visiting six Election 2012 battleground states to talk with 50-plus voters for a report that will be published in the September issue of the AARP Bulletin. She posted this from Youngstown, Ohio. When I last visited Youngstown, Ohio, four years ago, the city whose steel mills “built the tanks and bombs that won this country’s wars,” as Bruce Springsteen put it, had the feel of an industrial ghost town. So economically damaged was Youngstown from the decline …

A Radical Proposal to Narrow the “Turnout Gap”: Make Voting Compulsory

Posted on 05/11/2012 by | Politics | Comments

PoliticsIt’s hardly news that younger people are much less likely to go to the polls than older people. Just 48.5 percent of all 18- to 24-year-old Americans voted in the 2008 presidential election, for example, compared with 72.6 percent of those 65 and older. That’s a “turnout gap” of more than 24 percent. It’s much the same in many other countries, including England. According to the London-based Institute for Public Policy Research, just 44 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in …

Year of the Job-Seeker

Posted on 05/8/2012 by | Politics | Comments

PoliticsSusan Milligan is visiting six Election 2012 battleground states to talk with 50-plus voters for a report that will be published in the September issue of the AARP Bulletin. She posted this from a career fair in Independence, Ohio. A lot of middle-aged Ohioans are looking for jobs. While things here are better than they were — the unemployment rate statewide was 7.5 percent in March, down from a high of 10.6 percent in late 2009 — the people I …

Duking It Out Online

Posted on 05/3/2012 by | Politics | Comments

Politics | TechnologyThis year’s presidential campaign, more than any in history, will play out on a digital battleground — everything from the candidates’ own websites to Facebook and Twitter and anything, really, that comes to us byte-by-byte. Digital ads have joined television and radio ads as instruments of political persuasion and propaganda. E-mail is crowding out direct mail in the same way. Even fundraising has moved increasingly online, where campaigns can collect money (in mostly small amounts) nearly as fast as they …

In North Dakota, a Glimpse at the Politics of Medicare

Posted on 05/1/2012 by | Politics | Comments

PoliticsNorth Dakota voters, make up your minds: Do you want to end Medicare as we know it, or do you want to stick with a “government takeover” of health care that makes more than $500 billion in painful cuts to Medicare? In truth, the choice is neither that stark nor that simple. But the two candidates seeking the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Kent Conrad, who’s retiring, are presenting the issue that way. And it’s a rhetorical battle …

For Romney, What A Difference Four Years Makes

Posted on 04/25/2012 by | Politics | Comments

PoliticsMitt Romney’s “favorable” rating has been on something of a roller coaster in 2012. But the more older Republican primary voters have seen him, the more they seem to like him. Romney, who abandoned his 2008 quest for the Republican presidential nomination soon after Super Tuesday, has been doing better among 50-plus voters in the GOP primaries this year, according to exit polls. With few exceptions, Romney improved his standing among 50- to 64-year-old Republicans as well as Republicans 65 …

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